[David_Elvins]

A recent discussion on another site mentioned that several local courses did a poor job of showing off their architecture by failing to regularly use all the interesting pin positions in the greens.  

It should be a very important architectural issue.  The playability of a course is largely dependent on pin positions and good/bad pin positions have the ability to either highlight strategic architecture, options and angles, or render them largely irrelevant.

However, pin positions have been rarely discussed on here. Perhaps one of the disadvantages of the ability to play a large number of courses these days is that we lose sight of the variety that specific courses offer from day to day.  

To me tough, it seems that too often pin positions are dumbed down.  Perhaps it is the lack of imagination of ground staff, perhaps it is the pressure to counter slow play, perhaps it is a conscious decision to counter increased difficulty in other areas of design.  

What is your view on the courses you play regularly?  Do they mix the pin positions up enough?  Do the pin positions accentuate the architecture?  Or do they contribute to dumbing things down?  

[Sam Morrow]

Most of the places I play regularly do a decent job at mixing things up but on busy days you can expect the pins to be placed in spots to keep the pace moving. Nothing wrong with that, if I'm a course worried about pace I wouldn't put the pins in spots that can hurt pace of play.

[Greg Chambers]

yes

[Mark_F]

David,

Perhaps it is a basic unfamiliarity with the greens from whomever is setting the pins, and they fall back on the habitual in order to avoid trouble.  It would be a good idea to have perhaps only a couple of people set the pins, who can then get together with the architect to come up with a pin sheet that provides variety in hole location and thus interest.

This hole is a pretty good example of what you are talking about.


The pin is always at the front.  From the incorrect angle in the fairway, the approach shot is difficult, but you can play short for a simple putt or an up and down. If it is tucked back left in the "L", an incorrect approach angle magnifies the difficulty immeasurably, as there is no room for error if you want to leave yourself even a two putt.  A smidgeon too strong, and you have a horrible bunker shot from the one wide right.

[Mike_Young]

Yes,  IMHO pin positions are a part of the design that many don't recognize and abuse.  And it can be a non-golfing maintenance worker or an unknowing golf professional.  Placing pins where they were not designed is mickey mouse.

[Bradley Anderson]

A lot of cupable area is lost on your greens when speed increases from 11 to 12.

And there are some greens that give up area even when you jump from only 10 to 11.

[Jeff_Mingay]

The same can be said about the placement of tee markers. Too often the tee markers are put down in the same spots day after day. Moving the tee markers around enhances variety and architecture, similar to finding the coolest hole locations and mixing those up.

It is an art to do both well.

[Mike_Young]

And we can continue by adding the "width of fairways.  how often do you see a green committee decide narrowing the fairways is the answer...OH..wait....sometimes the USGA will even do this   must be ok...

[Kevin Cahoon]

It seems that it is easy for the grounds crew to fall into a rut with hole locations. It happened at my home club and the hole locations were becoming quite predictable. Some of this was due to green speeds and the slope of the greens that led the staff to be conservative. In 2012, a new assistant was tabbed with setting hole locations. Our super told him to use more imagination. It led to a variety of fantastic new hole locations that required you to re think how you would play these holes and added to the fun of playing the course. There were a couple of occasions where the hole locations were a little extreme but they made me think which was great. My hope is that this continues in 2013.

[Mike_Young]

In 2012, a new assistant was tabbed with setting hole locations. Our super told him to use more imagination. It led to a variety of fantastic new hole locations that required you to re think how you would play these holes and added to the fun of playing the course.

Kevin,
With respect I don't think there is such a thing as "new" pin locations.  I think good architects design each pin location when they build a green keeping a maximum green speed in mind.  I think we often do a bad job of "harping" on that enough and it gets overlooked.  IMHO hole locations are often not located in pin positions.  At my home club, not using the proper pin positions led to destruction of some classic greens.

[Joe Leenheer]

In 2012, a new assistant was tabbed with setting hole locations. Our super told him to use more imagination. It led to a variety of fantastic new hole locations that required you to re think how you would play these holes and added to the fun of playing the course.

Kevin,
With respect I don't think there is such a thing as "new" pin locations.  I think good architects design each pin location when they build a green keeping a maximum green speed in mind.  I think we often do a bad job of "harping" on that enough and it gets overlooked.  IMHO hole locations are often not located in pin positions.  At my home club, not using the proper pin positions led to destruction of some classic greens.

First off....there are no PINS in golf. Flagstick is the word you're looking for.  And how is a hole location not located where the flagstick location (aka pin location) is? Does your course just stick flagsticks in the ground and cut cups somewhere else on the green?

[Tom_Doak]

Well, at Old Macdonald our client banned the maintenance staff from using some of the most interesting hole locations!

And yes, generally speaking, clubs have gotten more and more "careful" about using difficult hole locations, and stuck to the more boring locations from day to day.  Or, they do the "back, middle, front" rotation that makes the golf course just a little bit TOO predictable.

I am happy that Streamsong has a couple of guys who really care about the day to day set-up.  It will make a world of difference there.

[jeffwarne]

Well, at Old Macdonald our client banned the maintenance staff from using some of the most interesting hole locations!

Given who your client is, and given that the bandon greenspeeds tend toward the speed that would allow use of the most interesting pins, I'm a bit shocked by that statement

[Tom_Doak]

Well, at Old Macdonald our client banned the maintenance staff from using some of the most interesting hole locations!

Given who your client is, and given that the bandon greenspeeds tend toward the speed that would allow use of the most interesting pins, I'm a bit shocked by that statement

Jeff:

Mike likes the customers to be happy, and he doesn't think they like to be embarrassed by difficult putts.  I wondered throughout the project why he was suddenly letting us build big, wild greens, but I guess he had already determined that because they were so big, he could go in afterward and rule out the hole locations he thought were too severe.  And there are a lot of them!  The ones that bother me most are the two wings on the first green [they are not supposed to use either of them now] and the front 2/3 of the Biarritz, which is a real bummer because it's one of the only Biarritz holes [along with Yale's] where the front of the green is interesting.

[Jason Topp]

I think this is one area where a green committee member can have an impact both by advocating that speeds be kept slow enough to allow interesting pins to be used and by pushing that positions that reveal interesting aspects of a green be used, even if they will cause some angst. There will always be people complaining in the other direction on both of those issues.

[Joel_Stewart]

Pat Mucci posted on this several years ago and to answer your question yes. 

When I was on the green committee at Olympic every few months I would ask the super to mix it up.  As a result for about a week you would see more interesting pin spots then it was back to normal.

[Mike_Young]

First off....there are no PINS in golf. Flagstick is the word you're looking for.  And how is a hole location not located where the flagstick location (aka pin location) is? Does your course just stick flagsticks in the ground and cut cups somewhere else on the green?

Joe,
Ok, flagstick is the word.  Often I have seen "holes located" in areas that were not design as "flagstick locations".  If some one cuts a "cup" three feet from one of these modern tiers then they have located a hole in an area that is not designed as a flagstick location.

[jeffwarne]

Well, at Old Macdonald our client banned the maintenance staff from using some of the most interesting hole locations!

Given who your client is, and given that the bandon greenspeeds tend toward the speed that would allow use of the most interesting pins, I'm a bit shocked by that statement

Jeff:

Mike likes the customers to be happy, and he doesn't think they like to be embarrassed by difficult putts.  I wondered throughout the project why he was suddenly letting us build big, wild greens, but I guess he had already determined that because they were so big, he could go in afterward and rule out the hole locations he thought were too severe.  And there are a lot of them!  The ones that bother me most are the two wings on the first green [they are not supposed to use either of them now] and the front 2/3 of the Biarritz, which is a real bummer because it's one of the only Biarritz holes [along with Yale's] where the front of the green is interesting.

Well, your client has certainly had his finger on the pulse of what customers want so far.
that said, his outside the box thinking would seem to be one of the main reasons for Bandon's success.
Nice they got the speeds right, and you got to build wild greens that shine at that speed, two out of three ain't bad, but I wonder how many customers might prefer 3/3(many probably don't even know what they're missing)?
Mike's right that customers complain when putting gets difficult, but perhaps a larger amount of rave reviews after some great pins would overwhelm the drone of the whiners

[Patrick_Mucci]

David,

I don't think it's been lost so much as it's been a victim of habits borne of concessions.
Concessions made in the name of fairness (Yikes)

On a number of courses, I can predict, within a few feet, where the holes will be cut on Tuesdays and Sundays, lady's day and couples day.

A few years ago, at a course I'm familiar with, the superintendent was told to cease with the monotonous, repetitive hole locations.

WOW, did things change and it was great.

Hole locations I hadn't seen in decades reappeared.

There was pushback however, cries of the hole locations being unfair.

My response:  Were the holes in the bunkers or on the greens ?  If they were in the bunkers, that's unfair, but, if they were on the
greens, that's where they're supposed to be and that's where you're supposed to play them.  Stop complaining and work on your putting.

I love diverse and challenging hole locations.

My favorite tournament these days is the "Greenskeepper's Revenge"  It's the most fun of almost all the tournaments I play in.

[Tom_Doak]

My favorite tournament these days is the "Greenskeepper's Revenge"  It's the most fun of almost all the tournaments I play in.

I personally hate those "greenkeeper's revenge" days.  It can make a mockery of greens with slope, and help reinforce the point that you shouldn't have difficult hole locations except for one day a year.  Plus, it's a guaranteed six-hour round with hard hole locations from the first hole to the last.

[Colin Macqueen]

David,
Much the same as Pat's response above here at Indooroopilly there are 4-6 rounds a year where The Devil's Pins are in play. The flagstick position on these days are not ridiculous but do engender amusement and bemusement. To see greens, which are not in any way wild, become really interesting in so far as where you initially play the ball, or strike the first putt to, has been an eye-opener. Happily this approach has been very well received by the members and the turn out on the day of this somewhat purgatorial procession is excellent.

I think it has produced more interesting post-round, in-the-bar discussions as to how one should play golf than anything else the match committee has done.

The superintendent and his off-siders have also enjoyed this experience as it gives them a quite a bit of licence to test out just where and how far they can reasonably go. It has been a great success and the art of locating the flag is being re-discovered by these guys for sure!

Cheers Colin

[Chris Tritabaugh]

The same can be said about the placement of tee markers. Too often the tee markers are put down in the same spots day after day. Moving the tee markers around enhances variety and architecture, similar to finding the coolest hole locations and mixing those up.

It is an art to do both well.

This is a great topic. As a superintendent, course set-up is one of my favorite parts of the job. I do it often and I encourage the others who do it to use some creativity. Jeff is right, course set-up is an art and getting right is often walking a line between interesting and unfair. I have been accused of being unfair but never uninteresting.

Jason's comment on slowing the green speeds for more available locations is a good one, but speaking from experience; slowing greens down is rarely never popular.

Being good at course set-up is something I take pride in and a lot of superintendents rarely do it.

[Don_Mahaffey]

First off, there are pins in golf because a ton of golfers call them pins. If Joe wants to tend the flagstick, fine, I'll tend the pin, thank you very much. Every time this comes up someone has to come here and scold everyone for saying what almost everyone says. BFD, flag, pin, hole, cup, whatever...its the thing we aim at.

Secondly, this whole set up argument gets old too. If you want your course set up with some thought you need to do two things.
1) Hire a golf course manager, not a turf manager. It helps a lot if they also like to play a little themselves (and are allowed to taste the cooking).
2) Live with the fact that once in a awhile it'll be over the top. You can't have interest everyday without pushing and once in a while we push too hard. Getting yelled at because of some "illegal" pin will quickly douse the fire to keep it interesting.

It is a bummer when things get watered down. For all the wonder and praise of Bandon, I think they should be called on the fact that they like to push the tees all the way forward and keep the set up geared toward quick and easy play. Mr. Kaiser is right and every supt knows it, a player who scores well is happier then one who doesn't, but it was a blast to play in the Ren cup last year and see some cool hole locations. To bad its so rare and I hope that someday that policy is loosened up a bit. Mr Kaiser certainly gets it right most of the time, but for 250+ a round, the player ought to see the "real" golf course.

[Patrick_Mucci]

My favorite tournament these days is the "Greenskeepper's Revenge"  It's the most fun of almost all the tournaments I play in.

I personally hate those "greenkeeper's revenge" days.  It can make a mockery of greens with slope, and help reinforce the point that you shouldn't have difficult hole locations except for one day a year.  Plus, it's a guaranteed six-hour round with hard hole locations from the first hole to the last.

Tom,

It's played as a scramble, takes less than 3:30 and has become extremely popular, so much so that guests are welcome.

Now there's mounting pressure for one in the spring and another in the fall.

It's a lot of fun and the members and the guests seem to really enjoy them

[David_Elvins]

Jeff is right, course set-up is an art and getting right is often walking a line between interesting and unfair.

Great golf course architecture walks a similar line, IMO, which I supose was the whole basis for the Opening post, the true greatness in a course is a mixture of great set up and great architecture.  As Don mentions about Bandon, a watered down setup really detracts from great architecture. 

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